Govt officials seek RTI help

HT Correspondent, New Delhi, July 6: The HT-supported Drive Against Bribe campaign has been approached by a lot of government officials who want to use the power of RTI to know the status on pending transfers and due promotions.
The camp at IG stadium, being right next to the Delhi Secretariat, has also been witnessing a lot of curious babus walking in just to check out the activities there. "The campaign has generated a certain amount of interest among certain sections of government servants. It is in a way ironical, since the movement seeks to curb corruption in these very circles," said an official. However, the Delhi government has been an ally of the campaign throughout. Two days ago, it even sent a circular to all its offices asking them to cooperate with the volunteers manning the drive.
On the same lines, on Thursday, the camp welcomed the Secretary General of Rajya Sabha, Yogendra Narain, who interacted with the volunteers and watched the proceedings for a while.
Meanwhile, volunteers at the sub-camps, set up on Wednesday outside the seven SDM offices, seemed to be getting busier by the day. "At Mehrauli the SDM asked us to shift the camp to the ADM's office since the RTI requisitions would be going there. But we held on to our ground. So he sent an official to get the RTI receipt book and start registering them," said one of the volunteers. But apart from that, volunteers at other SDM offices have reported full cooperative effort from government officials while filing the requisitions. The Mehrauli camp registered five requisitions and the camp in Daryaganj filed five. Within an hour of opening, the Nandnagri helpdesk filed 46 requisitions.
Nerve center of the Delhi campaign, the camp at IG stadium received a total of 145 visitors on Thursday. "In all, about 130 applications were filed on issues ranging from ration cards, Delhi police complaints, passport, PF, matters related to the DDA, Income Tax and others," said a volunteer.
Even nationwide, the campaign's success seems to be multiplying by the day. On Thursday alone, over 1300 requisitions were filed from across the country while the number of visitors was around the 2,200 mark.
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